


i'm not the boy i used to be

by r1ptides



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Dark Percy, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:40:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23604685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/r1ptides/pseuds/r1ptides
Summary: au: percy has a different reaction when annabeth gets stabbed. a moral dilemma follows.(during TLO)
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson
Comments: 7
Kudos: 111





	i'm not the boy i used to be

**Author's Note:**

> this idea randomly came to me.
> 
> I tried writing a first person POV fic: which is crazy ik. normally I hate them, and won't read them. so this is kinda a practice for me, to see if I like it which from rereading I don't lol. but Percy's first person pov narrative is what makes the series so great, so I tried to get into his voice. if anyone reads lmk if I did any good honestly
> 
> title from i'm not the boy I used to be - jye

**The Last Olympian**

**Chapter 11: We Break a Bridge**

You’re going to ask how the whole “invincible” thing worked: if I magically dodged every weapon, or if the weapons hit me and just didn’t harm me. Honestly, I don’t remember. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to let these monsters invade my hometown. 

I sliced through armor like it was made of paper. Snake women exploded. Hellhounds melted to shadow. I slashed and stabbed and whirled, and I might have even laughed once or twice- a crazy laugh that scared me as much as it did my enemies. I was aware of the Apollo campers behind me shooting arrows, disrupting every attempt by the enemy to rally. Finally, the monsters turned and fled- about twenty left alive out of two hundred.

I followed with the Apollo campers at my heels.

“Yes!” yelled Michael Yew. “That’s what I’m talking about!”

“We drove them back toward the Brooklyn side of the bridge. The sky was growing pale in the east. I could see the toll stations ahead.

"Percy!" Annabeth yelled. "You've already routed them. Pull back! We're overextended!"

Some part of me knew she was right, but I was doing so well. I wanted to destroy every last monster

Then I saw the crowd at the base of the bridge. The retreating monsters were running straight toward their reinforcements. It was a medium group, maybe thirty or forty demigods in battle armor, mounted on skeletal horses. Fifty new monsters or so joined them. One of them held a purple banner with the black scythe design.

The lead horseman trotted forward. He took off his helm, and I recognized Kronos himself, his eyes like molten gold.

Annabeth and the Apollo campers faltered.

The monsters we'd been pursuing reached the Titan's line and were absorbed into the new force. Kronos gazed in our direction. He was a quarter mile away, but I swear I could see him smile.

"Now," I said, "we pull back."

The Titan lord's men drew their swords and charged. The hooves of their skeletal horses thundered against the pavement. Our archers shot a volley, bringing down several of the enemy, but they just kept riding,

"Retreat!" I told my friends. "I'll hold them!"

In a matter of seconds they were on me.

Michael and his archers tried to retreat, but Annabeth stayed with her knife and mirrored shield as we slowly backed up the bridge.

Kronos's cavalry swirled around us, slashing and yelling insults. The Titan himself advanced leisurely, like he had all the time in the world.

Being the lord of time, I guess he did.

I tried to wound his demigod men, not kill. That slowed me down, but these weren't monsters.

They were demigods who'd fallen under Kronos's spell. I couldn't see faces under their battle helmets, but some of them had probably been my friends. I slashed the legs off their horses and made the skeletal mounts disintegrate. After the first few demigods took a spill, the rest figured out they'd better dismount and fight me on foot.

Annabeth and I stayed shoulder to shoulder, facing opposite directions. A dark shape passed over me, and I dared to glance up. Blackjack and Porkpie were swooping in, kicking our enemies in the helmets and flying away like very large kamikaze pigeons.

We'd almost made it to the middle of the bridge when something strange happened. I felt a chill down my spine- like that old saying about someone walking on your grave. Behind me, Annabeth cried out in pain.

"Annabeth!" I turned in time to see her fall, clutching her arm. 

In a flash I understood what had happened.

Something had been trying to stab me. Judging from where Annabeth was hit, it would've taken me maybe by sheer luck-in the small of my back, my only weak point.

Annabeth had intercepted the knife with her own body.

But  _ why? _ She didn't know about my weak spot. No one did.

My vision blurred and my heart pounded, even more than it had just been. I let my body take over, slashing Riptide through whatever had stabbed Annabeth. I felt the pressure of my sword make contact with whatever it was, and followed through as much as I could, until I felt bone.

It was an abnormal sensation, most monsters would dissipate by now. My vision returned to see another body at my feet. Another demigod.

My hands shook as I glanced down the edge of my sword. Deep red blood dripped off it, enough blood to make a puddle at my feet. Throughout the years, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything but dust and ichor on Riptide.

I felt like puking. I don’t even know what I’d ate in the past 24 hours, but whatever it was needed to come up.

Time seemed to slow down, but it wasn’t Kronos’ doing, it was my mind thinking a hundred miles per hour, which didn’t happen often.

_ I’d just killed someone, _ someone with a mortal soul. It was Ethan Nakamura, son of Nemesis, I figured out by peering down again, making my stomach churn even more. I’d swung so hard his armor had broken, and the cut was bloodier than anything I’d ever seen. 

I’ve seen other demigods die right in front of me, but never like this. Never by my own hand. 

This whole war, my friends and I all seemed to have an unspoken agreement: kill monsters. Just monsters.

I realized that hundreds of eyes were on me, enemy demigods as well as the Apollo Cabin. As much as I wanted to lay down, vomit, and hug my mom, I needed to look strong. Most importantly, I needed to keep Annabeth safe.

"Get back!" I slashed the air in a wide arc, driving the rest of the demigods and few monsters away from Annabeth. "No one touches her!"

They stepped back immediately. I made eye contact with some of them. Most looked older than me. Many were from Hermes, either being children of minor gods, unclaimed, or kids of Hermes themselves. They’d been there, the day I cried about my mom and been assigned to Cabin 12. I’d been dorky and naive. Now, they had just seen me take a life. A real life, not a monster.

I took a full 360 degree look around me. Behind me, the Apollo Cabin had all eyes on me, barely looking at the enemy. Half of them looked like they were trying to remain stoic, lazily holding their bows aimed somewhere towards Kronos’ army. The other half looked downright horrified, even green in the face like I imagine I did. I was their leader. Fighting for the right side, yet I had just taken some kid’s life.

"Interesting,” Kronos said, the only person (can I call him that?) mostly unaffected.

He towered above me on his skeletal horse, his scythe in one hand. He studied the scene with narrowed eyes as if he could sense that I'd just come close to death, the way a wolf can smell fear. 

Then he glanced down at Ethan, his lieutenant. The look had complete apathy, like it was a game of chess and I’d just captured a mere pawn.

"Bravely fought, Percy Jackson. I didn’t think you had it in you," he said. "But it's time to surrender... or the girl dies."

I peered down at Annabeth, she was losing consciousness. Her shirt was soaked with blood. I had to get her out of here.

"Blackjack!" I yelled.

As fast as light, the pegasus swooped down and clamped his teeth on the straps of Annabeth's armor. They soared away over the river before the enemy could even react.

Kronos snarled. "Someday soon, I am going to make pegasus soup. But in the meantime…”

He dismounted, his scythe glistening in the dawn light. "I'll settle for another dead demigod."

I met his first strike with Riptide. The impact shook the entire bridge, but I held my ground.

Kronos's smile wavered.

With a yell, I kicked his legs out from under him. His scythe skittered across the pavement. I stabbed downward, but he rolled aside and regained his footing. His scythe flew back to his hands.

"So .." He studied me, looking mildly annoyed. "You had the courage to visit the Styx. I had to pressure Luke in many ways to convince him. If only you had supplied my host body instead... But no matter. I am still more powerful. I am a  _ TITAN." _

He struck the bridge with the butt of his scythe, and a wave of pure force blasted me backward. Cars went careening. Demigods -even Luke's own men, were blown off the edge of the bridge. Suspension cords whipped around, and I skidded halfway back to Manhattan.

I got unsteadily to my feet. The remaining Apollo campers had almost made it to the end of the bridge, except for Michael Yew, who was perched on one of the suspension cables a few yards away from me. His last arrow was notched in his bow.

"Michael, go!" I screamed.

"Percy, the bridge!" he called. "It's already weak!"

At first I didn't understand. Then I looked down and saw fissures in the pavement. Patches of the road were half melted from Greek fire.

The bridge had taken a beating from Kronos's blast and the exploding arrows.

"Break it!" Michael yelled. "Use your powers!"

It was a desperate thought, no way it would work, but I stabbed Riptide into the bridge. The magic blade sank to its hilt in asphalt. Salt water shot from the crack like I'd hit a geyser. I pulled out my blade and the fissure grew. The bridge shook and began to crumble. Chunks the size of houses fell into the East River. Kronos's demigods cried out in alarm and scrambled backward. Some were knocked off their feet. Within a few seconds, a fifty-foot chasm opened in the Williamsburg Bridge between Kronos and me.

The vibrations died. Kronos's men crept to the edge and looked at the hundred-and-thirty foot drop into the river.

I didn't feel safe, though. The suspension cables were still attached. The men could get across that way if they were brave enough. Or maybe Kronos had a magic way to span the gap.

The Titan lord studied the problem. He looked behind him at the rising sun, then smiled across the chasm. He raised his scythe in a mock salute. "Until this evening, Jackson."

He mounted his horse, whirled around, and galloped back to Brooklyn, followed by his warriors

I turned to thank Michael Yew, but the words died in my throat. Twenty feet away, a bow lay in the street. Its owner was nowhere to be seen. 

"No!" I searched the wreckage on my side of the bridge. I stared down at the river. Nothing.

_ I did that,  _ a little voice whispered in my mind. 

I yelled in anger and frustration. The sound carried forever in the morning stillness. It felt like the loudest I’d yelled in ages, a raw howl of feelings I needed to get out. I was about to whistle for Blackjack to help me search, when my mom's phone rang. The LCD display said I had a call from Finkelstein & Associates- probably a demigod calling on a borrowed phone.

I didn’t even want to answer. Soon, I’d have to regroup with everyone and discuss, and tell them I had just killed two demigods.

But I had to stay in the moment.

I remembered something Annabeth had once told me from some book, The Art of War.  _ Appear weak _ _ when you are  _ _ strong _ _ , and  _ _ strong _ _ when you are  _ _ weak _ _.  _ I was weak right now, weaker than I’d ever felt before. I needed to appear strong.

My hands shook, and I let Riptide fall to the floor. I picked up the cell phone, hoping for good news. Of course, I was wrong.

"Percy?" Silena Beauregard sounded like she'd been crying. "Plaza Hotel. You'd better come quickly and bring a healer from Apollo's cabin. It's... it's Annabeth."

  
  



End file.
